Goodness and Mercy

Yesterday morning in Morning Worship, we sang the hymn, "Surely Goodness and Mercy."  It is such a happy, catchy, fun song to sing.  The hymn is based off of the Scripture Psalm 23:6 "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever."

I remarked that Goodness and Mercy would be great names to name sheep or goat twins!  Wouldn't that be the perfect names?  Just so happens, Mathilda is very pregnant with her first kids.  This morning at sunrise we went to the barn for our daily chores.  I put together all the feed and then I began to milk Clarabelle, the cow, as Tricia was feeding the chickens, opening nesting boxes and getting the goats in their places.  She said, "Mathilda is in labor!"

She updated me that Mathilda had feet poking out of her.  As she brought her into the barn and separated her in the stall, I could immediately tell that there were some problems.  Legs were protruding, for sure, but from the feet, you could tell that it was a breech birth.  Labor was not progressing and to make a long story short, Tricia timed Mathilda's contractions with pulling and was able to deliver the kid.

It was a female, but unfortunately, it was dead.  But, Mathilda wasn't done.  There was another kid coming.  Her labor was not progressing and Tricia had to assist with this delivery as well.  This was a male, and he was dead, too.  A very sad morning, to be sure.

The female, on the right, below, looked just like Mathilda.  The male, on the left, below, was spotted.

We are watching Mathilda closely after this ordeal.  She is very swollen from the stalled labor and delivery.  We were hoping to be able to be able to name these twins, Goodness and Mercy, and have them follow us all the days of our lives, but we'll save those names for later.  We'll have more twins come along in the future!  

Buried Treasure Beneath the Monkey Grass

Saturday afternoon I was looking for my wife.  I couldn't find her anywhere.  I checked out to see if she was with Cupcake, our little doeling who we are trying to get to walk.  Not there.  I called for her inside.  No dice.  I looked in the backyard and in the garden.  The little lady was nowhere to be found.  Finally, I opened the front door and there she was.  Tricia was on her hands and knees digging out monkey grass that was spreading out at the base of the oak trees.  Tricia and monkey grass are like oil and water or fire and ice.  They don't mix.  She had a big pile of uprooted monkey grass spread out in the yard.

While digging around in the bed pulling up the monkey grass, she told me she had unearthed an old cassette.  She had it laid by the sidewalk, so I took a look.

Well, I declare.  She had found an old Swamp Pop cassette from Cookie and the Cupcakes, Lil Alfred and Shelton Dunaway.  If you aren't familiar, Swamp Pop is a genre of music around here in Acadiana that mixes rock, country, rhythm and blues and French Louisiana styles of music.  The song that is the "anthem of Swamp Pop" is "Mathilda" by Cookie and the Cupcakes and was recorded in 1958.  The band was based in Lake Charles, Louisiana and the lead singer, Huey "Cupcake" Thierry, was born right down the road in Roanoke.

The funny thing is that we have a goat named Cupcake (name of the band) and another goat named Mathilda (name of the band's biggest song).  Strange!  How this old cassette came to be buried in the monkey grass bed, we'll never know.  The tape housing was full of mud and would never play, BUT, you are in luck.  If you wish to hear the song, Mathilda, from a recording on YouTube, here you go: (Go ahead and click the arrow...